Rerranged everyone - bird room pictures
Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:59 am
After the passing of my sweet Sydney, the dynamic in my mixed budgie/tiel flock has been off. Freddy the cockatiel became a bit antagonistic to poor Arthur who no longer has his big blue bodyguard to watch out for him. I decided to separate the two tiels and two budgies from one large Prevue flight to two adjacent 30 x 18 flights so they can still hang out but not be confined in close quarters together. Freddy absolutely adores the other budgie Sam, but I didn't want him to stress Arthur after all he's already going through losing his closest companion. This way those two could still talk and interact, but he couldn't chase Arthur from the food bowl or off his swings. It's worked out well, and the budgies and tiels still get daily free flight to play together out of their cages.
Well, after that move was done, I had an empty F40, so I decided to consolidate some of my other small cages, and move both my society males, Sebastian the canary, and Snowy the ringneck dove in together and see how they'd do in one big enclosure rather than three small ones. So far they've been perfect roommates there.
I then found a 6 foot table in the basement and bought a new 30 x 18 cage so I could stack a total of four of them together neatly, as I'd had all sorts of different cages all over the room on every sort of different table or stand and it was so annoying to clean everything! Into the new cage went my five little handfed canaries, who have now graduated to a flight cage, and next to them, on the lower level of the stack, went the brown dove Sparky, who is a bit more boisterous than Snowy and does best by himself.
And finally, across the room in her own private 24 x 16, Melody the canary hen sits tight on four new eggs. I hope she does better her second time than her first with caring for her young - I strongly feel her failure in her first attempt was actually a result of the male harassing her when I wasn't looking. He became very aggressive with her and thus is now separated.
So all of the cages now are very easy to keep clean and everything is organized and I am happy. I think the birds are too.
I'm currently alternating free flight groups. Everyone but the societies, male canary, and white dove come out together in the bird room and then those four in another, normally in my spare room separated by a closed curtain, where I'll wheel their cage in the morning before bringing it back in the evening once everyone's gone back into their cages. This is because the doves are both males and fight when they're together AND because Sam is in love with Snowy and will bother him relentlessly and regurgitate all over his head (gross) - and also because I don't want the male canary to harass the hen through her cage since he is not very nice to her and she is subsequently afraid of him now. The societies get along fine with everyone else but they're just stuck with this setup because of their cage mates.
Well, after that move was done, I had an empty F40, so I decided to consolidate some of my other small cages, and move both my society males, Sebastian the canary, and Snowy the ringneck dove in together and see how they'd do in one big enclosure rather than three small ones. So far they've been perfect roommates there.
I then found a 6 foot table in the basement and bought a new 30 x 18 cage so I could stack a total of four of them together neatly, as I'd had all sorts of different cages all over the room on every sort of different table or stand and it was so annoying to clean everything! Into the new cage went my five little handfed canaries, who have now graduated to a flight cage, and next to them, on the lower level of the stack, went the brown dove Sparky, who is a bit more boisterous than Snowy and does best by himself.
And finally, across the room in her own private 24 x 16, Melody the canary hen sits tight on four new eggs. I hope she does better her second time than her first with caring for her young - I strongly feel her failure in her first attempt was actually a result of the male harassing her when I wasn't looking. He became very aggressive with her and thus is now separated.
So all of the cages now are very easy to keep clean and everything is organized and I am happy. I think the birds are too.
I'm currently alternating free flight groups. Everyone but the societies, male canary, and white dove come out together in the bird room and then those four in another, normally in my spare room separated by a closed curtain, where I'll wheel their cage in the morning before bringing it back in the evening once everyone's gone back into their cages. This is because the doves are both males and fight when they're together AND because Sam is in love with Snowy and will bother him relentlessly and regurgitate all over his head (gross) - and also because I don't want the male canary to harass the hen through her cage since he is not very nice to her and she is subsequently afraid of him now. The societies get along fine with everyone else but they're just stuck with this setup because of their cage mates.
